Small Bites: This week’s restaurant news

SMALL BITES

Party like it’s harvest timeMonticello, the home of our own “first foodie,” serves as the pastoral background for the sixth annual Heritage Harvest Festival on Friday, September 14 and Saturday, September 15. You and your family will learn—with all your senses—about the gifts of our local soils and the hardworking people who grow them. More than 60 workshops on everything from seed saving to cider making will be offered over the two days, and samples abound. See heritageharvestfestival.com/schedule/ for a full schedule. General admission tickets cover Saturday’s programming and cost $10 in advance and $15 at the door for adults ($8 for kids either way). Friday’s workshops cost $10-15 each.

Bread topped with a cause
Grabbing a meal at Mellow Mushroom is always a good idea, and especially so during the month of September since the restaurant’s donating $1 of every bruschetta appetizer ordered to Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign. The program, in its fifth year, has raised more than $4 million to help feed the 16 million children living with hunger in America.

Bringing in 2012
Another vintage of Virginia wine to enjoy is surely something to celebrate. King Family Vineyards’ annual Harvest Dinner on Thursday, September 20 shares the reward of toil at 6pm with wine and passed appetizers, followed by a family-style meal prepared by A Pimento Catering. The menu reads like a moveable, seasonable feast of our area’s best producers, like Bellair Farm, Everona Dairy, Free Union Grass Farm, Planet Earth Diversified, and Radical Roots. Tickets are $95 per person ($85 for Wine Club members) and seating is limited, so make your reservation at 823-7800.

Last year, out of more than 70 nominations, C-VILLE presented readers with 14 of the area’s most eligible. This year, we won’t be quite as discriminating: Anyone who wants in gets in. To nominate a great catch (or yourself—we’ll never tell)*: E-mail the nominee’s

It starts innocently enough with some faint clicking as your dog trots across the kitchen tile. It can wait, you figure. She hates having her nails trimmed and another week won’t hurt. Until she climbs into your lap and eight dull knives dig deep into your thigh. Reluctantly, you admit to

Family Monticello gingerbread house workshop Saturday, December 10 and Sunday, December 11 Feast on cookies and hot chocolate as you create a colorful new addition for your holiday décor. $55 for a four-member family pass, 2-4pm. Smith Woodland Pavilion at Monticello, 931 Thomas Jefferson Pkwy.

When deciding on what to do next with the Yearbook Taco space, owner Hamooda Shami dug deep into a lengthy note on his iPhone, a note full of mostly wild hospitality ideas that ends with a Peanuts cartoon where Lucy, in her winter coat, hat and mittens, says to Charlie Brown, “I feel torn

When I asked Lampo’s Ian Redshaw to name the best restaurant in Charlottesville, his answer surprised me. Don’t get me wrong, I love Sultan Kebab. Even when it was hidden in a nondescript location off U.S. 29 North, I named it to The Charlottesville 29, my list of Charlottesville’s essential

Family Lighting of the Lawn Thursday, December 1 This annual tradition aims to unify UVA students and faculty as well as the Charlottesville community with performances ranging from a capella to dance, and an elaborate light show. Free, 7-10pm. UVA Lawn. lightingofthelawn.com Nonprofit The

You’ll often find a university at the epicenter of many of the world’s great wine regions. Learning institutions help drive and fund research and increase wine quality. Since 1905, the University of California, Davis has conducted vine and wine research just outside of Sacramento. Its findings

After celebrating a decade in business, Pham, the owner of Lemongrass on the Corner, has been looking ahead to the next 10 years. Yoshihiro and Yukiko Tauchi, owners of Mican, a Japanese restaurant that, until this fall, had been located at York Place on the Downtown Mall, fused with

Bitters are back, baby, and one local is looking to get in on the action. Wait, bitters? “The traditional recipes for a cocktail up to the late 1800s were all the same—bitters were a part of almost all cocktails,” says Kip McCharen, founder and owner of McCharen’s Bitters. “It’s a seasoning. It

Breweries have been popping up around Charlottesville like mushrooms after a rain. About a dozen beer producers are now located within an easy drive from town. But curiously, only four breweries are actually located within the city’s limits: Champion, South Street, Three Notch’d and—the newest

Loosen your belts, Charlottesville. We’re getting more food, food that we didn’t even know we needed. Here’s a quick roundup of what’s open—or will be open soon—at 5th Street Station. Wegmans A chain that feels less like a grocery store and more like a marketplace, Wegmans boasts a host of

Family Shenandoah National Park free entrance day Friday, November 11 In honor of Veterans Day, the National Park Service is offering free entrance into its more than 400 parks. Free; park open 24 hours. Shenandoah National Park, 3655 U.S. Hwy. 211 E., Luray. (540) 999-3500. Nonprofit Virginia

Sharing my home with both a dog and a cat, I’d be hard-pressed to say which one I prefer to keep as company. They bring such different kinds of joy, and feel like two halves of a lovely whole. But my cat does have one clear advantage that no dog can match. She can purr. […]

Family Family Day at the film festival Saturday, November 5 Families and community members of all ages are invited to enjoy a day of film, arts, entertainment and learning. Free, 9am-2pm. Betsy and John Casteen Arts Grounds at UVA. virginiafilmfestival.org. Nonprofit S’mores for Camp Holiday

Star chefs In 1900, French tire moguls Ándre and Édouard Michelin found a creative way to get more people to buy their tires: a restaurant and hotel ratings guide that would get people in their cars, on the road and wearing down tire treads going from place to place. By 1926, the Michelin Guide

For Ian Glomski, 2012 was a watershed year. He turned 40 and narrowly escaped a massive wildfire while on a birthday fly-fishing trip in Wyoming. He served as a juror for the George Huguely trial and fought cancer for the first time. “All of that added up,” he says, and with mortality on the

Family Animal Connection Anniversary Party Saturday, October 29 Get Fido and Fifi ready to party in celebration of Animal Connection’s 15th anniversary. There will be free treats and goody bags, plus opportunities to sit for sessions with a pet portrait artist, a pet photographer and an animal

I was driven to Insanity by my wife. “I don’t know,” she said in all seriousness, “there’s just something about it that I think you might like.” I thought she knew me better. Exactly which part of a high-intensity workout was I going to enjoy? Don’t get me wrong; I’ve never had anything against